Harrison Ford’s ‘Star Wars: Episode VII’ Injury Has Him Sidelined For Two Months

When Harrison Ford was injured by the door of the Millennium Falcon while shooting Star Wars: Episode VII, it was unclear how bad the injury was. But now that a little time has passed, it appears that the once and future Han Solo sustained more than just a little scratch.

THR reports that Ford broke his ankle on Thursday and was taken to the hospital, and now sources close to the production are saying that the actor will miss eight weeks of filming because of the severity of the break. A source also spoke about Ford’s situation with the UK outlet The Mirror:

The initial day or two after the accident it was hard to move things around but now we have had more time we can juggle things, bring some scenes forward and push others back. There are lots of other actors in the movie so it is not a disaster. We are still confident the film can stay on schedule. At the moment it looks like Harrison is going to be off set for 6-8 weeks but the main priority is making sure he is OK.

Disney and Lucasfilm have made such a big deal about hitting that 2015 release date (initially it was said that the film would be released next summer before being dropped back to December, much to JJ Abrams’ relief), and it would not be good for the studio if they were to miss that release date and have to bump the movie to 2016. There’s a whole Star Wars machine in place now with multiple movies already in development and various stages of pre-production, and bumping one would likely have a ripple effect throughout the rest of these projects. It sounds like Abrams will be able to shoot around Ford’s injury, so there shouldn’t be too much trouble meeting that announced date.

Ford’s injury sucks, but if there’s one thing Star Wars fans can glean from all of this hand-wringing about his return, it’s that Han Solo definitely has a large, important part in this movie. There was some speculation a while back that the elder cast wouldn’t have big roles in this movie, but after Abrams and Lawrence Kasdan took over screenwriting duties from Michael Arndt, rumors swirled that the original cast would be more front and center in Episode VII. Seems like that’s now undeniably the case.

Ben is a writer living in Los Angeles, California. His work has been featured at ScreenRant.com, FirstShowing.net, MySpace.com, GeekTyrant.com, and many more sites across the web. Some of his favorite movies include The Rocketeer, Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, Tombstone, Lucky Number Slevin, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Collateral, Double Indemnity, Back to the Future and The Prestige. Follow him on Twitter: @BenPears.